


Traces of Nothing

by Leonawriter



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Identity Issues - kh style, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, the author shows their salt over one thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25541572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: When Terra suffers from the slowly dawning realisation that his head isn't entirely back to how it was before, he asks for advice from exactly the right people.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	Traces of Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I'll admit a big part of having written this is down to a) having recently played KH2 for myself, and b) accidentally level grinding Terra to lv20~ before he's even finished Cinderella's world in my BBS playthrough. It's the command slots, and my hatred of that minigame...

It's dark, when Terra wakes up, but _that_ isn't the kind of darkness he's afraid of. If he looks out of his window from the room he'd lived in for most of his childhood, he can see the stars - so many of them. Their lights, bright and shining strongly, a reminder of the other worlds out there that he's visited, that he has connections to.

The stars are a comfort.

Just seeing them there...

And yet, it isn't enough. Not to fully shake off the... _memories._

That's what they were, after all. He'd come back in a complicated way - sometimes, he thought about the _how_ of it all, and it still didn't make sense, although part of that was probably how much he had to rely on the stories other people had told him - and although they said that Xemnas was nothing like him, had nothing to do with him, had been completely separate in every way that was important...

That had still been _his_ _body._

Every so often, whenever he wasn't thinking, he'd catch himself saying something in an unfamiliar way, or moving, _gesturing_ \- 

Aqua and Ven would look at him strangely.

They'd try and pretend it hadn't happened, and in a way that was worse than if they'd asked him why this was happening and he'd not been able to give them any good answers.

It wasn't as though the dreams were always all that awful, was the thing. They just _were._ It was just him, Terra, dreaming that he was... someone else.

Wasn't that bad enough? After having been used like that for _ten years?_

Terra breathes - _in, out_ \- and sighs at how bad he is at keeping his darkness in check even now, because even if he can accept it, make it truly _his_ , he still can't let it take over him in that way. Bearing resentful feelings over things he can't control is a shortcut to anger issues he doesn't want.

He dresses himself for the cool breeze the Land of Departure has always had, puts his shoes on, and heads outside.

...

He starts with normal keyblade forms - strikes, parries, and blows he learned while growing up. The familiar motions are soothing, but it's not long until he moves onto the moves he learned while out in the worlds.

These are more complicated, though they come easier to him now than they ever used to.

Out here, on the outskirts of his home world, there aren't any enemies to fight, just the air, his imagination, and himself.

And then he throws his keyblade for a strike raid, and in the seconds it's gone, something flashes in the corner of his eye and instead of pulling his keyblade right back to his hand-

An _Ethereal Blade_.

Blood red, hovering in the air in front of his hand, and somehow, he knows exactly what he'd have to do with it if he needed to, in a fight.

He sends it away again, the moment his keyblade is back. He holds the weapon's weight in his hand and reminds himself that he's _Terra._ Just Terra, of the Land of Departure. Not Xemnas. Not Xehanort. No one else.

Just Terra.

...

He doesn't tell Aqua or Ven. They've got enough to worry about, especially Aqua, after her own brush with darkness, so there's no need to add this on top of everything else.

He does warn them he's going off somewhere, though. Maybe telling them that he's just "visiting a friend" is a long shot, but it's also sort of true. He's just not being fully honest as to _why_.

Maybe not explaining what was going on had been why everything had gone wrong the first time around, he thinks, but by that point he's already leaving. At least it isn't too late this time.

Riku is the first person he finds to talk to, and he's lucky to find him at all, with how busy the kid's being these days. If he's not doing one thing for one person, he's doing something for someone else - all just to find that friend of his, who'd helped save them all. In a way, Terra owes Sora more than he can ever even begin to repay, so he can't deny understanding why Riku's running himself ragged like this, even if he's not really getting far.

It's an awkward conversation, but Riku gets why Terra came to him the moment he says anything to do with _possession_ and _darkness_ , but the moment he feels capable of explaining what had happened that night, Riku's face clears in understanding.

"I think I get what's going on," he says. "But I also feel like I'm not the _best_ person to talk about it. Just because I know what it is, doesn't mean I can help you, you know?"

Terra did. Or, at least, he thought he did. 

"Then... who?"

"Have you... ever been told exactly what Roxas' story is?" 

"Not all of it. Just enough to not be entirely confused back then, and after that everyone's been so busy getting back to normal that..." he shook his head. "You think I should talk to him?"

Riku hesitated, but then nodded.

"Just... remember. It might not be comfortable talking about this sort of thing, but I think you two have enough in common that it might be what you both need. And - if you can remember even just _that_ much about that guy... then that's going to make things awkward as well. But don't let that stop you."

He knew that. He knew it in the same way that he wasn't sure yet if he was up to a prolonged conversation with the inhabitants in Radiant Garden's castle.

That said, wasn't it the same as the problems he might well have with several of the people Roxas _himself_ hung out with a lot? Let alone Roxas himself?

But he'd come this far. And if Roxas could help him figure this out... then he could face up to a few personal discomforts over what his body, his face, had done while he hadn't been in control.

...

"I think I get it," Roxas was saying. "And... before you say anything else, I don't think you _are_ him. You're just... not the same Terra you were before."

It was odd, speaking to Roxas like this. In battle it was easy to tell him apart from Ven, because they held their keyblades differently - and Roxas usually wielded either a Kingdom Key the same as Sora's, or Oathkeeper and Oblivion, and none of them in the backhanded way Ven always had. He also fought differently, far more aggressively and with none of the finer training that Ven'd had with them under the Master, either.

Roxas also, for all that he was effectively sort of younger, _felt_ older. There was a familiar weight of experience, of having gone through hell and back that so many of them shared, and that looked out of place on Ven's face.

"What... do you mean?"

Roxas sighed.

"Before I became like this, before my body was my own and all that, all I was, was... Sora's Nobody. I might not have looked like him, or remembered any of his memories, but that's what I was. And eventually, I did start to remember. The "how" of it doesn't matter, though, what does is... by that point, I was me. Not Sora. I was _me,_ and there were people telling me that didn't matter." Terra could hear the anger and bitter resentment creeping into Roxas' voice, but it sounded old, and the boy shook it off with a shake of his head. "The point is, back when Riku fought me, he said something to test me - and I reacted just like Sora would have done."

"You mean, just like I've been having times like that, but with Xemnas?"

"I... yeah, I think so? And who knows, maybe by the end of it all, Xemnas was his own person completely different from you _anyway._ And maybe he's gone now that everything's fixed. Or maybe, he started to grow a heart just like the rest of us, but he didn't make enough connections and there was too much Xehanort in there for it to matter. Who knows. But what I think matters _now_ is that just because you and your body _remember_ , doesn't mean you're not _you._ "

"I... think I get it." He'd have to think on it some, that was for sure. But it was more to go on than he'd had before. "And... the blades?"

He'd expected a flinch, maybe - or worse. 

Instead, he's surprised by Roxas starting to _laugh._

"What, you think that's just gonna go away? I've still got the keyblade, Lea was using his chakram more than _his_ keyblade even after he first got it, if what Kairi says is true, Isa's still got that massive claymore of his. If I had to bet, I'd say that the only surprising thing is that you don't _look_ like Xemnas used to. I mean, you sort of do? But you also kinda don't. But don't worry about it so much. I'm sure it's not just us, either. I just haven't bothered asking Vexen- I mean, Even and the others yet."

He nods. 

"Do you think I should try talking to them, too?"

"I mean... I dunno. Dilan and Aeleus'll probably point you at Even and Ienzo if you try talking about things like this with them, and if you go to _those_ two, I hope you know how to deal with getting poked, prodded, and lectured. And expected to remember everything they've said after, too."

"Talking from experience there?"

"Ugh. I wish I _wasn't."_

This time, it's Terra who laughs, although Roxas joins him only moments later, in a way that reminds him more of Ven than ever.

"But... really," Roxas says, just as he's standing up to leave, "no one's expecting you to go right back to normal as if nothing happened. No one should. People pretending that everything's fine and just carrying on is part of what made _my_ mess so much worse, so... thanks, I guess? For talking to me."

Terra put his hand in his pocket, fingers touching the cool metal and glass that made up the wayfinder that Aqua had made and given to him all those years ago.

Maybe he _would_ go talk to the others - people he sometimes remembered seeing in those dreams in fractured ways, incomplete images of people he didn't really know, and never really had - but that can be another day.

Today is for knowing that he can go back home with a lighter heart.

And when he _does_ come back, maybe he'll bring Aqua and Ven along with him, because he knows all too well how easy it's becoming to lose himself in how much things seem not to have changed when they and their home don't _look_ like they've changed, and everything that's different is on the inside.

 _I won't let them drift away from me again,_ he promises, aiming himself toward the beacon of _home._ Perhaps he didn't have the faith or belief that the others did, all the time. Maybe he needed something more substantial to make things seem real. But he didn't think that was necessarily a bad thing. _If I can act as their grounding force, then they can stop me when I feel like I'm going to shatter._

And maybe that's how it always should have been, back then-

But it wasn't too late to _start._


End file.
